


A Cabin Up North

by littlebreadrolls



Category: Hannibal (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Daemon Touching, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sexuality Crisis, daemon AU, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-22 16:49:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlebreadrolls/pseuds/littlebreadrolls
Summary: They should die. They don’t. Instead, they go to a cabin up North and convalesce there.(Hannibal AU with daemons.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally just finished watching all three seasons of Hannibal (way too late) and I'm hooked, so I wrote this daemon AU thing. I don't know if this has been done before (it probably has), but hey, the more the merrier, right?

They should die. They don’t. Instead, they go to a cabin up North and convalesce there.

They live amongst wailing blizzards and endless snowdrifts – amongst iced over lakes and skeletal trees – amongst fish that flicker sluggishly beneath the ice and little furred animals that peek up from inside their caves. They go to bed early and rise before dawn. They wear long johns and snow boots, and insulated coats, and funny ear-flap hats which Hannibal insists on calling _ushankas_.

In short, they've both begun to look an awful lot like characters out of _Fargo_.

At least there's no wood-chipper by their cabin. Will cuts all of their firewood himself. In the evenings, Hannibal throws that firewood onto the hearth before sitting down to read aloud by the dim light. He reads passages from Thomas Mann's _Death in Venice,_ and from Kierkegaard's _The Sickness Unto Death_ , and from a shabby old copy of _Larousse Gastronomique_ , and, when he's in the mood for a little more levity, he reads a verse or two from the Bible. Will doesn't mind what's being read to him. He enjoys listening to Hannibal's voice. It makes him calm, and it makes Zola sleepy; she'll curl herself up into a ball at Will's feet with her eyes glossy and half-lidded.

Ossius usually likes to spend their evenings standing as close to the fire as possible. If he's just come in from the cold, his fur will start to steam. Sometimes, it'll singe. His enormous, unwieldy bulk seems even more enormous and unwieldy in their tiny cabin, and his antlers send black shadows crawling across the walls, and the shadows look like the teeth of some monstrous trap slowly clicking shut above all of their heads.

Will's not sure why the idea comforts him as much as it does. 

 

Will is still unused to the pink scar winding its way across his face. That, combined with his natural clumsiness with straight razors, means that ends up cutting himself too often when he shaves. It hardly matters. He's already more cut than skin anyway. One morning, as he's rinsing off his loose stubble, Zola stands herself up on the edge of sink and examines his scar with her eyes narrowed in concentration.

 _It's ugly,_ she tells him.

It's the first time she's spoken to him since they emerged from the sea. Will has to laugh to hide how relieved he is.

"Scars usually are," he says. "But it healed well."

_Before the bandages came off, I was afraid that you would look different with the scar. Like another person entirely. But you don't. You still just look like Will Graham._

"Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?"

She leans forward and licks the end of the jagged furrow. _Don't be stupid, Will._

It takes a moment for Will's smile to fade; when it does, he finishes washing the last of the suds – and her spit – off of him. "I hope you liked the taste of my soap."

_It really wasn't that bad. You need use more lye next time._

They make their own soap here – just like they cut their own firewood and mend their own clothes (whatever they can't make they have to import, and that takes rather a long time as well as entailing an hours-long trip to the post office in the nearest town). It's just another aspect of the ascetic life they've built themselves. Even the meals that Hannibal cooks for them now are simple and hearty: sausages, fried eggs, freshly-caught fish, thick slices of warm bread slathered in butter. It's good of course. The food is always good.

It's with no little irritation that Will realizes how much he's actually missed Hannibal's cooking.

 

 

Zola enjoys the cold. Her thick fur is suited to it. When they go outside, she likes to range out as far ahead of him as she can, until her little white body almost seems to disappear into the white of the snow.

Irrational as it is, the sight makes Will uneasy. It reminds him of the recurring nightmares he's had ever since he was a child, nightmares in which Zola – his peculiar, contrary, voiceless little stoat daemon – pressed onwards past the limit of their bond, or even further. Pressed onwards until she disappeared over the edge of the world and was gone.

The psychologists that Will met throughout his life all seemed to have been particularly interested in these dreams of his. One told him that the dreams were an indicator of an uncertain sense of self. Another said that they suggested a conscious or subconscious aversion towards his own daemon.

Could it be that Will was _ashamed_ of Zola? Did he feel embarrassment over the fact that she was born mute?

(And if there's one bright side to being dead, Will thinks, it's that he'll never have to see another psychiatrist again for as long as he lives. None, at least, except for the psychiatrist whom he shares a bed with every night.)

 

 

They share a bed because the cabin only has one, up in the loft. It's narrow. They use three blankets and two quilts. They don't avoid touching each other, nor do they seek to do so deliberately; in the night, their shoulders bump and their arms and legs tangle together. It's a fraternal sort of intimacy, the kind which arises from being the only two people alive in a desolate waste of wilderness – except that it isn't that, not at all, because their intimacy has never depended on the presence or absence of other people.

One night, Will dreams of Molly. He dreams about going fishing with her. He's standing in the midst of the stream, up to his knees in water, and she's sprawled lazily on the bank.  _Get a big one, Will_ , she's saying.  _Catch us a nice big one for dinner._  Will wakes up cold and pale and shivering afterwards, his knuckles clenched white on the blankets. Zola is sprawled across his chest, grumbling and still half-asleep; Hannibal is lying motionless beside him. On the other side of the bed, Ossius's antlers rise up from the floor like tree branches. 

For a moment, Will feels – absurdly – like he's just peered through the veil between life and death.

He isn't sure how much time passes in this way when Hannibal suddenly inhales and rolls over to face him. Hannibal's eyes are open and alert in the dim light. Perhaps he's been awake for a while. Perhaps he's been awake even longer than Will has. They stare at each other. Will opens his mouth to speak.

What he ends up saying is, "I'm not attracted to men."

"I am aware," Hannibal responds, only a beat too late to be casual. "Is there any reason you feel like informing me of this fact now?"

"You wanted to kiss me, after I killed Randall Tier."

"I would not have been opposed to the idea."

"You didn't ask me if you could."

"I did not think you would want to."

"I didn't want to. I don't want to now."

Hannibal nods impassively.

"Does that frustrate you?" Will says – not exactly cruelly, but not kindly either. "That I can't want you the way you want me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I want you in any way that you will allow me to have you, Will."

Zola's little claws have begun to dig into Will's neck. They hurt. Ossius's antlers, however, have remained completely still. Perhaps Ossius is still asleep; Will has seen with his own eyes how he and Hannibal can separate from each other, and, if they can do that, then what's to say that one can't be sleeping while the other is awake? It's an uncanny thought. Will turns away and closes his eyes.

He imagines Molly falling beside him in the bed. He thinks of her hair spreading out beneath her like straw, her mouse daemon sniffling at his ear.  _Will_ , she's whispering giddily, laughing, her breath smelling like toothpaste. She's waiting for him to turn off the lights and roll on top of her, to kiss her with fond familiarity, to hold her in his arms all lovely and hot and easygoing and alive, and it's all simple, so simple –

Will murmurs, "I've never hated anyone in my life as much as I've hated you," and it's the truth. Hannibal accepts it with equanimity.

They both know that _hate_ is a wholly inadequate term for what binds them together.

 

 

Hannibal washes their dishes, and Will dries. Hannibal cooks their meals, and Will eats. In the evenings, Hannibal hums as he deliberates in front of their little bookshelf ("What do you feel like reading today, Will?" – "I don't know; surprise me"). At night, Will can smell Hannibal in the weave of their blankets and pillows. God only knows where Hannibal can smell him _._

Sometimes, it all makes the small cabin feel a bit too small – and Will's skin a bit too thin – and then he has to take Zola out into the searing cold, and walk, and walk, and walk, just to keep ahold of himself as a separate person, just to escape Hannibal's perpetual stare. Will's disconcerted by the softness he sees in Hannibal's eyes, by the softness in his smiling mouth. Hannibal's lips are odd and lush. They do a terrible job of covering his vicious, crooked teeth.

 _How dare you,_ Will wants to say, spiteful or fond or some wretched combination of both. _How dare you start to go soft on me now?_

Every morning, Hannibal performs exercises beside the fireplace. He rotates his arms and stretches his legs, and does pushups against the floor. His shoulder blades roll and jut beneath his skin. His back is slick with sweat. Will looks at him and thinks: _He's beautiful._

Then Will thinks: _Ah, shit._

 

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super rushed and I'm not at all pleased with it but I'm done looking at it so here it is.
> 
> One more chapter after this one!

Will spends the day fishing and gets back to the cabin just as it's beginning to get dark. Hannibal's there waiting for them, of course.

Ossius isn't.

It's uncanny to see Hannibal that way, alone without his daemon anywhere nearby. It makes him seem even less human than he usually does. As Will pauses by the front door to kick the snow off his boots, he can't help but peer around the room – as if he expects to spot Ossius's enormous bulk hiding behind a coat stand, or maybe a table lamp. "Hey, we're back."

"So you are." Hannibal sitting by the window in one of his soft grandpa sweaters, writing – no, sketching – in a small book in his lap. "Did you have a nice fishing trip?"

"I did. Are you going to ask us if we caught anything?"

"Did y – "

"Yep." Will smiles. "See for yourself."

He shows off two bluegills, sleek and slick, each almost as long in length Zola. Zola herself chirps proudly, her whiskers twitching. Hannibal smiles. The late evening sunlight highlights the crookedness of his teeth, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the white streaks in the beard he's been growing. It's absurd how well everything manages to suit him. "They're beautiful. I'll cook them for our supper tonight."

"OK. Sounds good. Do you, uh – d'you think Ossius will be back by dinner?"  Will scratches at his scruffy beard, oddly bashful.

"I admit that I do not know when exactly Ossius will return. He left sometime in the morning – just after you did, I believe. He seems to be in an exploring mood. You know how far Ossius can wander, when he has a mind to do so."

Will does know. He remembers the hoof marks he used to find outside his house in Wolf Trap – back when he was still naïve enough to believe that the deer tracks belonged to ordinary _deer._ Back when his brain was still cooking in his skull, and Hannibal was nothing to him yet but a serpentine shell of stiff suits and fine things. Back when he hadn't yet learned that a man could separate from his daemon, and live.

"I don't care where Ossius wanders to," Will says pointedly, "as long as he's not – not _stalking_ me anymore without my knowledge."

"I imagine it would be rather difficult for Ossius to 'stalk' you out here. His pelt doesn't quite blend in amongst all of this snow."

Hannibal lifts up his sketchbook and shows Will what he's been drawing. On the page is a picture of Will and Zola. They're both standing in a white field, gazing out alertly towards the horizon where a black web of charcoal tines are rising up into the sky. From all the way across the room, Will can't tell if the tines are supposed to be tree branches or antlers.

 

Ossius hasn't returned by the time they finish dinner. He also hasn't returned by the time they go to bed. It isn't until sometime past midnight, when Will stirs awake from a dream, that he finds Ossius standing – skulking – at the entrance of the loft.

Will nearly yelps. 

Inscrutable and pacific even in the bright daylight, Ossius is even more uncanny now: a hulking beast, matte black and silent, eyeless in the dark. His shape seems to suck up the available light in the room. Zola draws herself up on Will's chest. Her ears twitch. She stares intently at Ossius, and Ossius stares back – Will _thinks_ he stares back. It can be rather difficult to tell what exactly Ossius is staring at during any given moment; his eyes are virtually indistinguishable from the dark of his fur, and so he might be gazing attentively at a crack in the wall, for all Will knows.

After a short pause, Ossius lowers his head. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" he whispers. His voice is mild, softly accented, and perfectly modulated, like that of an elementary school teacher.

Will shakes his head. He glances down beside him to see if Hannibal is awake, but Hannibal isn't – or, more likely, Hannibal _is_ , and he's doing a good job of pretending not to be. Will lifts his gaze again just in time to watch Ossius make his way towards the bed. Ossius walks smoothly for something so huge; his hooves are surprisingly quiet on the wooden floor. With a soft rustling of fur, he folds himself down gracefully onto his usual spot on the thick rug beside Hannibal's side. He lowers his great head onto his forelock, huffs a soft breath, and goes still, and perhaps he even falls asleep. Both Ossius and Hannibal have always fallen asleep easily, and slept well; the sleep of the innocent.

Still rigid on Will's chest, Zola stares down at Ossius for a moment longer – but soon enough, something must settle inside of her, too, because she flattens herself back down onto Will's neck and yawns.

 _He's a creepy one, isn't he_? she thinks to Will drowsily, and her tone is almost grudgingly impressed.

 

–

 

And one day, Will wakes up in their little shared bed with his skin sticky with sweat, and his hips humping into the mattress, and his first coherent thought is the realization that he's fucking _hard._

His second is: _Hannibal._

He freezes, the way startled animals do. His hands are clenched tight on the blankets and his face is flat against the bed; he's afraid to raise his head and look beside him.

 _Stop being so dramatic,_ Zola says, yawning, from where she's curled up between Will's shoulder blades _. He's not here._

And she's right, of course – Hannibal almost always rises earlier than Will, earlier even than the sun does here. Never before has Will been so thankful for the rigid orderliness of Hannibal's personal habits. Nonetheless, Will feels keenly the suffocating _smallness_ of their little shared cabin; the muted sounds of Hannibal's footsteps – the rustle of his clothing – drifts up from downstairs with perfect clarity, and so God only knows what _Hannibal_ would hear, if Will stuck a hand down his underwear and got himself off.

Will gets himself off anyway.

Afterwards, he throws on his clothes and climbs downstairs. Hannibal's made breakfast by then – a bacon and leek quiche. It's deliciously fragrant, and obviously not fragrant enough, because Ossius's nostrils flare as Will passes by him and Hannibal's eyes narrow just a hair. Will wouldn't even have noticed it, if he weren't so obsessively familiar with every inch, every corner of Hannibal's face.

 _They smell it on me,_ Will thinks, a little spooked, as he sits down at the table, _they smell – he smells my –_

"Good morning, Will."

"Uh, 'morning."

They eat their breakfast. Zara sits on the table, licking at Will's plate; Ossius stands beside Hannibal's chair, a motionless black hole in the room. They talk, of all things, about the weather.

It's a clear day today. No clouds in sight.

Hannibal goes out to clear the roof after he's finished his breakfast, and Will stays behind in the kitchen to have a second helping. He enjoys the unusual experience of having the cabin to himself. It isn't until Zola leaps up onto his shoulder and chirps, her ears pricked, that Will realizes that he might _not_ have the cabin to himself after all. He turns and there's Ossius standing behind him – _right_ behind him – so close that it's a wonder Will didn't feel his breath on the back of his head.

"Ack," Will says, more or less. He accidentally drops his fork on the ground. Even after all this time, it's still a wonder to Will that a creature as large and as pitch black as Ossius can be so stealthy.

"Did I startle you?"

"I – yeah, a little."

"I apologize."

It's an eerie thing, being alone with another person's daemon. Rather like talking to a face without a mouth. Will takes a gulp of water and waits to see what Ossius will do, but it seems that Ossius doesn't mean to do much of anything at all. He's enormous and dark and silent, just as he's always been. He doesn't flinch when Zola – who's perched still on Will's shoulder – stretches out her little neck and sniffs at him, and after a moment, he even tilts his head and sniffs her in return. Their noses touch.

It's not at all unusual for daemons to touch each other, of course – but never before has Zola touched another person's daemon without the person in question being present too. It feels somehow _perverse_ this way – as if Will is allowing something furtive and improper to occur.

"Zola," he says sharply. Zola ignores him. She always does.

Will stands up, sets her on the ground, and goes to wash his dish clean. When he turns back around, he finds Ossius with his head bent low to the ground near Zola's upright little body. Ossius is – he's _whispering_ something to her. Will stares. He's not sure what to do. He's not sure he should do anything at all.

In any case, Ossius soon finishes speaking, as evidenced by his lifting his head and abruptly walking out of the cabin.

 

Will gets out the fishing pole and the tackle box and heads towards the lake. Today, Zola zips along in front of him. She gets pretty far ahead of Will, far enough that he can barely even see her anymore on the horizon. Far enough that the thing which tethers them begins to gently ache.

_Zola._

_Walk faster, Will._

_Zola – stop._

She glances back at him, her eyes narrowed against the sun. Then she turns and dashes even further away, in long, sinuous bounds.

It's something that she's liked to do since they were young – testing their bond the way one would test the stretch a rubber band – and so perhaps the ache of it should be familiar to Will by now. It's not. It never is. He grips the fishing rod too tightly in his hands, his stomach churning, his muscles cramping like they're being stretched out on a rack. Between the two of them, he's almost always the one to concede. He concedes now. He jogs forwards a few paces through the snow, the tackle box banging awkwardly against his calves, until the tug in their bond slackens, until the ache is relieved.

Then he braces himself on his knees and pants.

"Are you happy now?" he snarls.

 _You weren't walking fast enough_ , Zola says. She sounds about as pained and out of breath as he does – but she also sounds contrite. She finally spins around and comes barreling back pell-mell across the snow towards him, leaping into his arms, tucking herself tightly against his neck – clingy and babbly with something she'd never admit was relief. Will digs his fingers into her fur.

"What did he say to you?" he asks suddenly. "In the kitchen? What did Ossius say?"

He's been resisting the urge to ask, because he knows Zola's tendency towards contrariness; even now, he expects her to maintain a stubborn silence for no reason other than to spite him. Instead, she yawns – her little tongue curling, her sharp teeth out – and then tells him with perfect calmness: _Ossius said that you can touch him. If you want to_.

 

–

 

Will doesn't want to.

He also can't stop thinking about it – about how much he doesn't want to do that, to touch Ossius, because why would he? Will's touched other people's daemons before, of course, and others have touched Zola. It's only happened a few times, and each time was a disaster – an overload of too much sensation that left him with blinding migraines for weeks afterwards.

So he doesn't want to touch Ossius.

He also doesn't stop thinking about it.

 

–

Though stress and healing kept Will's libido pretty well in check for weeks, he's relatively well-fed now, and well-healed – and sharing a cramped little bed every night with Hannibal Lecter – and so perhaps it's no surprise that he feels pent up and out of sorts. Perhaps it's no surprise that he starts having particular sorts of dreams every night, and waking up every other morning with an erection that could pound nails. He dreams of Molly, and of Alana, and of other women from his past.

He dreams of people who are decidedly not women.

It's nothing to be ashamed of – just another animal instinct – and one of the most primitive ones at that. What could be more natural than eating and sleeping and fucking? (Though come to think of it, Will's never been all that great at doing any of those things). Still, it's a great relief that Hannibal is always downstairs cooking breakfast by the time Will wakes up – except for one morning, when he isn't.

One morning, Will stretches and yawns, and turns his head on the pillow, and finds Hannibal there, staring back at him, his pupils huge and black. He's taking deep, measured inhales. He's _smelling_ Will's arousal.

And, just like that, a finger of heat twists down Will's stomach.

"Uh – " Will begins, as if he's about to speak. He doesn't speak. He wants to turn his head away. He doesn't do that either. Beneath his chin, Zola has begun to bristle. _Will_ , she thinks to him, and nothing else. Her mind is fuzzy static. Or his is, maybe. He watches, in a sort of daze, as Hannibal fumbles off the covers, reaches a hand down into the opening of his underwear, and – without fanfare – begins to bring himself off.

Hannibal masturbates efficiently and stoically. He maintains eye contact all the while. He produces almost no noise, save for the soft whisper of the blankets, the fleshy sound of his hand on his cock, his panting huffs. He's breathing too deeply. So is Will. Hannibal's almost gulping; he's – he's taking desperate inhales of Will's scent. His mouth opens, he lips move silently: _Will,_ he's mouthing, _Will_. Will can't help but make some sort of noise in return, a choked gasp. He wants to reach over and touch Hannibal himself. He wants Hannibal to touch him. He wants to tear down the collar of Hannibal's pajama shirt and bite into his oscillating throat.

Ossius is still lying on the other side of the bed; his antlers rise up as if they're sprouting out of Hannibal's side. As if they're piercing Hannibal through. Will remembers what Zola told him – _you can touch him –_ and all of a sudden, he imagines reaching out over Hannibal's strong warm body, imagines reaching out his hand and digging his hand into Ossius's thick pelt, digging his nails in. He imagines the way Hannibal might flinch and gasp, might even convulse and _howl_ – 

"H-Hannibal," he says, and Hannibal's lip lifts in a vicious snarl and comes.

For the first time, he looks away from Will. His eyes go blurry. He shudders. He comes for what seems like a long time; with his own fingers wound tight in the sheets, Will realizes that Hannibal must have been as pent up as he was.

From the floor on the other side of the bed, Ossius begins to rise. When he's stood to his full height, Ossius looms above the bed, breathing as hard as Will's ever seen him breathe, and Will feels the breeze of his breath on his flushed cheek. Will shudders.

Beneath his chin, Zola snuffles. Her eyes are half-lidded. Her fur is sleek and low.

 

–

 

They don't talk about it.

**Author's Note:**

> (jsyk, there will be weird daemon touching porn later so)


End file.
